Modern Applied Science; Vol. 8, No. 2; 2014 ISSN 1913-1844 E-ISSN 1913-1852 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education
Relationship among Economic Growth, Internet Usage and Publication Productivity: Comparison among ASEAN and World’s Best Countries Hossein Gholizadeh1, Hadi Salehi2, Mohamed Amin Embi3, Mahmoud Danaee4, Seyed Mohammad Motahar5, Nader Ale Ebrahim6, Farid Habibi Tanha7 & Noor Azuan Abu Osman1 1
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2
Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran
3
Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, 43600, Malaysia
4
Faculty of Agriculture, Roudehen Branch, Islamic Azad University, Roudehen, Iran
5
Faculty of Information Science and Technology,Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, 43600, Malaysia
6
Research Support Unit, Centre of Research Services, Institute of Research Management and Monitoring (IPPP), University of Malaya, Malaysia 7
Department of Financial Sciences, University of Economic Sciences, Tehran, 1593656311, Iran
Correspondence: Hadi Salehi, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. Tel: 98-913-104-1419. E-mail: hadisalehi1358@yahoo.com Received: January 5, 2014 doi:10.5539/mas.v8n2p160
Accepted: February 7, 2014
Online Published: March 14, 2014
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/mas.v8n2p160
Abstract Publication productivity, as measured by the number of papers, has been regarded as one of the main indicators of reputation of countries and institutions. Nevertheless, the relationship among research publications, economic growth and World Wide Web in ASEAN countries is still unclear. The main intention of this study was to identify publication productivity among ASEAN and the world’s top ten countries in the last 16 years (1996-2011). This study also aimed at finding the relationship among publication, gross domestic product (GDP) and internet usage. Furthermore, the publication trend in the 10 first Malaysian universities was evaluated for the same periods. Scopus database was used to find the overall documents, overall citations, citations per document and international collaboration from 1996 to 2011 for each country. The World Bank database (World Data Bank) was used to collect the data for GDP and the number of internet users. Moreover, to evaluate 10 top Malaysian universities, the number of published articles, conferences, reviews, and letters for the same periods was collected. The results of this study showed significant differences among ASEAN and top 10 countries regarding publication productivity. Moreover, a positive and significant relationship was observed between indices, GDP and internet usage for these countries. Surprisingly, international collaboration had a significant and negative relationship with economic growth. Malaysia had fewer citations per document (7.64) and international collaboration (36.9%) among ASEAN countries. In conclusion, international collaboration between academic institutes and researchers is influenced by economic growth and access to internet in the countries. Furthermore, publication trends in ASEAN countries are promising. However, policy makers and science managers should try to find different ways to increase the quality of the research publication and to raise citation per document. Keywords: ASEAN countries, publication productivity, citation, internet user, collaboration, economic growth 1. Introduction The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a geo-political and economic organization including ten countries located in Southeast Asia, was formed on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Since then, the membership has expanded to include Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. One of the main aims of this association is accelerating economic growth (Sarel, 1997). The main tool for measuring a country's economy is Gross domestic product (GDP) that is the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. 160